Roundtable 2: Women in Media and Politics
Wednesday, 9 January, 17.15 – 18.15
Chair: Karen Ross
Panellists:
- Alys Mumford, Engender
- Talat Yaqoob, Director Equate Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University
- Fiona McKay, Robert Gordon University
- Michele Paule, Oxford Brooks University
- Nathalie Weidhase, Birmingham City University
The Women in Media and Politics roundtable will discuss the challenges that many women face when they act publicly in the media and political domains. Although women hold up half the sky, their relatively low participation and under-representation in media and politics is a global issue, which has been fairly constant over several decades, albeit with modest incremental improvements. Women who take up an active role in public life, including as activists and politicians inhabit an environment, which is institutionally and historically hostile, and experience discrimination, harassment, gender-based violence and abuse on- and offline as highlighted by a number of high-profile cases which have hit the headlines. However, what recent campaigns such as #MeToo and #TimesUp signal is the growing confidence of individual women and groups to call out sexism, using social media as a powerful tool for voice and advocacy. The roundtable participants will consider what these trends mean, both the continuing challenges which women experience as well as the strategies and campaigns which have been initiated as pushback, and focus particularly on why key institutions such as the media and politics seem so resistant to change and what needs to happen in order to change the picture.